Heiress for Hire
by TheRealLeilaJackson
Summary: Thalia Grace was enjoying her summer in Cuttersville until dear old Dad cut her off. Now Thalia has to do the unthinkable, get... A JOB. Hiring Thalia to baby-sit his child may not be the smartest thing Percy has ever done but the smile she brings to his daughter's face makes it all worth it, now all Percy has to do is try to keep Thalia out of his heart. Cursing.


**_First Story!_**

**_Full Disclaimer; I don't own the characters._**

**_Warning OOC. No Flames._**

* * *

Thalia

There were some things that money couldn't buy. For everything else, there was her father.

Since Zeus Olympia couldn't -or wouldn't- provide Thalia Grace with love, affection, or respect, at the very least she figured he should foot the bill for a few of life's necessities. And luxuries.

'Daddy, just two hundred. That's all I need.' Thalia checked out her manicure and grimaced. If only he could see how god-awful her nails looked, he would understand that this was an emergency.

'Why not make it two thousand? Why not ten thousand?' Her father's sarcasm came crackling through her cell phone.

She decided to ignore it. 'That's so sweet of you! And it's not even my birthday.'

That wheezing was probably the sound of his blood pressure going up. She had a momentary twinge of guilt. She didn't want to give him a heart attack. She just wanted a manicure.

'Thalia Juliet.'

Ouch. Trotting out the middle name game was never a good thing. Thalia set her front porch swing swaying. She ran her fingers idly through the lilac bush that hugged the porch as she rocked back and forth.

She was enjoying her summer in East Bum Fuck, or if you went by what the map said, Cuttersville, Ohio. It was quaint and different and full of fawning men, eager to pay court to the rich girl from Chicago. Visiting the country had been a lark to quell boredom, and following her cousin Jason Grace to Cuttersville had given her both a destination, and another way to piss her father off. But the town had it's drawbacks in that there were actually establishments that only accepted cash, as unbelievable as it seemed. And her father, with his many mountains of money, was back in Illinois, getting cranky about her spending habits.

Which was ironic considering that he had created those spending habits and nurtured them in her. He had praised her beauty and her style as a child and scoffed at her attempts to use her brain. Now he found those very traits that he had fostered in her annoying.

All her attempts to please him had failed, and around her eighteenth birthday she stopped trying.

'Yes, Daddy?' If he could use sarcasm, surely he would recognize it.

'Have you heard of tough love?'

Thalia stopped playing with the tips of her hair extensions and frowned. Maybe she had been in the country for too long, ogling brawny farmers and getting back to nature. 'Is that a new designer? Did P Diddy start a new line of street wear? Why haven't I heard of it?'

He snorted. 'No, it's not a goddamn clothing line. It's what I'm about to do for your own good, because I love you and you need to get serious, Thalia. You're almost twenty-six goddamn years old. When I was your age, I was making nearly a million every year already.'

Thalia moved her mouth in a silent 'blah, blah, blah.' She had heard this speech before. Could recite it backwards and forwards and in French.

'You need to work for your money.'

She was. Listening to him blather was hard, painful work, and she had to endure it every time she needed cash. It was as bad as flipping burgers at McDonald's would be, she'd bet.

Maybe it was time to get a job. Not that she was qualified to do anything, given her degree in art appreciation. But it was getting a little bit old to beg for money all the time, and the childish satisfaction of spending her father's fortune no longer had the same charm.

My god, maybe she was actually maturing. That was a scary thought.

Thalia reached down and scooped up Baby, her teacup poodle, and stroked her downy head. She was getting stressed out, and Baby was soothing, her fluffy fur poufing around Thalia's fingers. Baby's devotion was uncomplicated, and Thalia appreciated that.

'So this time I'm serious, Thalia, I've had it. I'm instituting tough love. In the end we'll both be happier this way.'

Thalia heard herself sigh. She was really getting too old for these circular arguments. There was no fight left in her. That's why she was nesting in the country, to relax. 'What are you talking about? What does tough love actually mean?'

'It means I'm cutting you off. No more money.'

'What?' The words didn't make sense. They were unintelligible to her. Daddy was money, money was Daddy, and he couldn't possibly mean…

'No. More. Money. Ever. That's what I mean. You'll have to fend for yourself from here on out. I know your rent is paid for the duration of the summer, so you'll have plenty of time to look for work. There's the two-thousand I gave you last week. That should hold you over until you get your first pay check.'

'It's gone already! Baby needed dog food.' And she needed a new handbag, one better equipped to handle the dust of the country.

'What the hell is that dog eating? Beluga? Christ, Thalia, give me a break. That dog is the size of an egg. It probably eats a can of dog food a month.'

Thalia felt the beginnings of panic, followed by pure anger. How absolutely like him. He gave, and he taketh away. Her father had a serious power trip going on. He loved to be the one in control, holding the cards, controlling her life.

Well, she wasn't going to beg. Not this time.

She'd just run to the money machine and make a large cash withdrawal on her credit cards. All six of them.

'Well, if your sure about this…' She paused, giving him time to regain his sanity.

'I am.'

'Then I have to go. I have to find a job before I die of starvation and exposure.''

Or worse, her cell phone ran out of minutes

* * *

Percy Jackson wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his T-shirt and watched the car pulling in his driveway. Didn't look like anyone he recognized, at least not from first glance at the black Ford pickup. The truck passed the turn off to Percy's parent's house, the big Victorian farmhouse in the center of their property, and headed back toward the squat brick ranch that belonged to him.

In no big hurry to see who it was, and only mildly interested, Percy stepped over a row of soybeans and started towards the house, slow and steady. That's what his father called him. That's what his first wife, Annabeth, claimed to admire in him. And Percy was who he was, and there wasn't any sense in trying to change that.

But slow and steady somehow hadn't served him quite the way he'd wanted them to. There were only two things in life Percy had ever wanted- to work this farm and to raise a family.

He had the farm. Pinching a leaf off as he went down the row of lusty plants, he surveyed his crop and was satisfied. It was a good year, so far. Farmers never counted their crops before the harvest, but so far, so good.

What Percy didn't have was the family. No wife, no kids. An empty house and an even lonelier bed. It was a problem. One he had been aiming to fix when he had been side-swiped by a strange lust for the new woman in town, Thalia Grace.

He shook his head, even as his body reacted to just the thought of her tall, thin, sun kissed body. "You're a damn fool, Jackson,' he muttered.

A woman like that wouldn't look twice at a lug like him- and if she did, she'd toddle herself right back out of town on her tooth-pick heels after she'd tired of him. Wasn't a future with a woman like that.

Rubbing his hands down the front of his jeans, Percy stopped in his drive and watched the pickup crawl to a stop in a cloud of dust. He could see a man and what looked like a little boy in the passenger seat. He was starting to think maybe they were lost.

'Can I help you folks?' he asked, as the man stepped out of a truck that looked like it had just slid off the assembly line, shiny and dent-free under the layer of farm-dust that had just coated it. The tires were three sizes two small for the height of the truck, which must have jarred the guy's teeth coming up Percy's dirt driveway.

The man himself was tall and lanky, wearing low-slung nylon cargo pants and a basketball jersey, his thick, gold chain necklace flashing in the sun. Percy wasn't too overly impressed with his done up car or his abundant jewellery. There was something about a man that primped like a girl that sat wrong with Percy. But he would be a friendly, nice guy, until given a reason to not be.

'You Percy Jackson?'

'Yeah.' Percy's shoulders went up at the man's belligerent tone. 'Do I know you?'

The guy snorted. 'No. But you knew Calypso Davies, didn't you?' He turned and called over his shoulder, 'Get out of the truck!'

Calypso Davies? Percy didn't know a Calypso. It was a small town and Percy didn't leave town too often.

Slowly, the passenger door creaked open and two small gym shoes hit the dirt. A solemn set of eyes, set in a thin face half covered by a baseball hat, peered around the door at him. It was a kid. Just a little kid, no more than eight or nine years old.

'I don't know any Calypso Davies.'

'Maybe she never told you her name, but you knew her alright. About nine years ago I imagine. When was you born, Belle? I can't remember exactly.'

'April 23,' said the child in a soft, frightened voice.

Big brown eyes locked with his before skittering away and Percy had a suddenly horrible feeling that this man was trying to tell him something he didn't think he wanted to hear.

'So what was you doing in July nine summers ago, Percy Jackson? You meet a girl from Xenia and get it on?'

Nine years ago. That had been the summer between his junior and senior year in high school. The summer he and his long time sweetheart, Annabeth, had broken up over a misunderstanding about sex. He had wanted it; she hadn't. So when he'd been footloose, fancy-free and more than a bit heartbroken, he'd gone to the county fair.

He met a girl named Calypso from Xenia, who had been a friendly sort. Friendly enough that she had suggested that they go for a drive, which had resulted in both of them naked and fucking in the back of the vehicle.

Oh shit.

'I can see by the look on your face that your memory's coming back.' The guy reached into his pocket. 'She put you on the birth certificate.'

Percy cleared his throat and tried not to panic. He glanced at the kid who was making circles in the dirt with his toe. This could not be his child. It just couldn't be, because this kid was half grown and, and…

He took the piece of paper. The words blurred together, but he managed to make out the vitals. Mother; Calypso Davies, age 16.

Christ almighty, she had told him she was eighteen. He'd knocked up a kid, nothing more than a kid.

Of course, that kid had shown him a whole range of sexual tricks that he'd never dreamed of, but that was besides the damn point.

Father; Percy Jackson, age 17.

A sticky note was attached to the front of the sheet. Percy Jackson, 1893 Mill Road, Cuttersville. There was a heart drawn around his name.

Oh, boy.

'Why didn't she ever tell me if she thought I was the father?'

'She told her boyfriend it was his, and they got married. But Calypso wasn't all that bright, and she put your name on the birth certificate, he found out a couple of years later and walked out.'

'Who are you then?'

'I'm Calypso's third husband, Mark Johnson. She's dead now, Calypso got a bit too attached to her happy pills and took one too many. We had some good times, and I was torn up when she died, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to keep her brat.'

Percy watched in shock as Mark reached into the truck and pulled out a battered suitcase, then a box heaped with dingy stuffed animals and a faded yellow blanket. He carelessly dumped them on the driveway.

'Here's all her stuff.'

'Her stuff?' Percy looked dumbly at the box, the birth certificate still clutched in his hand.

'Yeah. Belle's shit. Your daughter. I can't keep anymore. The kid always did creep me out with her big eyes and her imaginary friends.'

Mark Johnson climbed into his truck and gave him a wave.

Then he pulled out and started down the drive with more speed than was strictly wise on a dirt road. He'd tear up his shocks doing that.

Percy looked at the kid he'd thought was a boy. The kid that was supposedly his kid.

And decided it wasn't wise to wish for things. Sometimes they arrived when you least expected it, in a different packaging than you'd planned.

He'd just gotten his family in the form of one very skinny, silent eight-year-old girl.

Whose mother had overdosed and whose stepfather was a selfish asshole.

Oh, boy.

* * *

_**What did you think? Should I continue? R&R**_

_**P.S. Its my birthday tomorrow ;)**_


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